Kelly and Kornienko have been aboard the space station for 340 days, about twice as long as previous crews.
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He smiled and chatted with his doctors and other staff, as photographers crushed around him in the freezing cold.
Though Kelly is the only American astronaut to have stayed in a spaceship for this long, this was not the longest space sojourn in history. Kelly returned to earth last night after an unprecedented year in space for NASA.
NASA researchers will help answer questions about the space mission through Reddit on Friday morning, and the space agency will conduct a press conference in the afternoon as well to discuss the findings of the scientists.
Kelly and Kornienko were launched to the space station on March 27 last year for their one-year mission.
The American will now be flown to Houston to be examined for long-term effects of space travel, which include muscle atrophy, bone loss and vision problems.
Kelly frequently posted to social media during his stay in space, posting images of his final sunrise aboard the ISS on Tuesday.
Kelly will bid farewell to his crewmates and enter a capsule at 2115GMT with Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and Sergey Volkov.
During a broadcasted change of command ceremony, Scott Kelly acknowledged his colleagues’ support and relinquished command of the ISS to fellow astronaut Tim Kopra.
“I could go another 100 days, I could go another year if I had to”.
The world record for a single spaceflight is 438 days, set by a Russian cosmonaut in the 1990s.
Following touchdown, the two yearlong spacemen were scheduled to undergo a series of medical tests.
Altogether, Kelly will have spent 520 total days in space.
Acting as human guinea pigs, in the kindest sense, Kelly and Kornienko have spent a year in space in order to see whether the human body can withstand long durations in space, all as part of our attempts to see whether deep space missions with humans is possible.
“For the one-year mission research, we will be collecting post-flight medical data three-months and six-months after he is back on Earth”.
For NASA, this is vital for a future mission to the Red Planet. “I am bringing home today two wonderful crew members, Scott and Mikhail, so thank you so much to everyone for your support”.
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United States astronaut Scott Kelly (R) and Russian cosmonauts Sergei Volkov (C) and Mikhail Korniyenko, surrounded by ground personnel, rest shortly after landing near the town of Dzhezkazgan (Zhezkazgan), Kazakhstan, March 2, 2016.
